Democratic Party responds to Coakley memo: 'Political malpractice'

By Ben Smith

01/19/10 04:00 PM EST

A senior Democratic Party official responded furiously today to a memo from a Coakley adviser arguing that the national party bears a large share of blame for failing to support her financially and sticking her with unpopular policies on health care and Afghanistan.

The official writes:

This memo is a pack full of lies and fantasies — The DNC and the DSCC did everything they were asked and have been involved in the race for several weeks, not just the last one.

The campaign failed to recognize this threat, failed to keep Coakley on the campaign trail, failed to create a negative narrative about Brown, failed to stay on the air in December while he was running a brilliant campaign. It's wishful thinking from a pollster, candidate and campaign team that were caught napping and are going to allow one of the worst debacles in American political history to happen on their watch that they are at the 11th hour are going to blame others.

Before the DNC and DSCC got involved there was barely a single piece of paper on what the narrative is on Brown. The candidate in this race and the campaign have been involved in the worst case of political malpractice in memory and they aren't going to be able to spin themselves out of this with a memo full of lies.

ALSO: An administration official e-mails: "Last I checked, Fenway Park is not in Afghanistan."